JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — With teens obtaining driver’s licenses during the summer more than any other season and an average of seven teens dying every day from motor vehicle injuries, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2021’s Best & Worst States for Teen Drivers.
Wyoming, with its more than 33,000 miles of highway, requires a lot of driving. In addition, the Equality State ranks dead last in teens ability to navigate those roadways safely—bottoming out in metrics like ‘most teen driver fatalities per teen population’ and ‘highest number of teen DUIs per teen population.’
In order to determine the safest and least costly driving environments for U.S. teenagers, WalletHub compared the 50 states based on 23 key metrics. The data set ranges from the number of teen driver fatalities to the average cost of car repairs to the presence of impaired-driving laws.
Best vs. Worst
- Rhode Island is among the states with the fewest teen driver fatalities per 100,000 teens, at 1.10, which is 15.9 times fewer than in Wyoming, the state with the most at 17.45.
- Tennessee has the lowest share of major roads in poor or mediocre condition, 14.00 percent, which is 5.5 times lower than in Rhode Island, the state with the highest at 77.00 percent.
- Hawaii has the lowest premium increase after adding a teen driver to a parent’s auto-insurance policy, 3.00 percent, which is 74.3 times lower than in New Jersey, the state with the highest at 223.00 percent.
- New York has the fewest vehicle miles traveled per capita, 6,335, which is 2.8 times fewer than in Wyoming, the state with the most at 17,569.
